TEACHING CORE Aston, 28 Sept 2015

TEACHING CORE, Alvin Birdi

TEACHING CORE 1.Adopting CORE 2.Adapting CORE 3. Delivering CORE 4. Resources to help

Coherence – will CORE fit into my programme(s)? Capacity – can we teach CORE? Buy-in – will CORE be accepted? 1. Adopting CORE

Example Curricula UNIVERSITY AUNIVERSITY B Macro 1, Micro 1, World Economy History and Theory (40%?), Quants, Options Economics and global history Economic Instutitions Economic Theory and Application (1/3?) Maths / Stats Options Macro 2, Micro 2, Econometrics Options Growth, value and distribution Intermediate Micro Intermediate Macro Maths 2/ Stats 2 / Econometrics Applied Economics Options Applied Econ Project Options Microeconomics Macroeconomics Project

Supply and Demand. Supply; demand; market equilibrium; equilibrium shocks; government intervention; supply and demand elasticities. Consumer theory. Preferences; utility; budget constraints; individual demand; substitution effects; income effects; Applications, behavioural economics and critiques of rational choice framework Production. Technology; isoquants; marginal rate of technical substitution; marginal products; cost curves; long and short run; returns to scale; profit maximisation; cost minimisation; cost curves; supply curves. Competition. Profit maximisation; short run; long run; market equilibrium; consumer welfare; producer welfare; applications. Imperfect Competition; Models of Oligopoly: Cournot Model; Stackelberg Model; Comparison of Collusive, Cournot, Stackelberg, and Competitive Equilibria; Bertrand Model; Game Theory. An introduction to terminology and Nash equilibria. General Equilibrium Models and the Welfare Theorems; Externalities, public goods, asymmetric information – moral hazard and adverse selection. UNIVERSITY A (Micro)

Microeconomic analysis of a pure exchange economy using indifference curve analysis and the Edgeworth-Bowley box framework Concepts of scarcity, preference and choice, demand, supply, exchange, and equilibrium prices using these tools Production and supply in a production economy in partial equilibrium Pareto optimality and market failure in a general equilibrium framework The basic concepts and analytical procedures of macroeconomic theory: a simplified two-sector model of the economy, the autonomous expenditure multiplier, and conditions for equilibrium; Increasing the complexity of the model: the government and foreign trade sectors, and money and price-level inflation The role of expectations and investment Fluctuations in the level of economic activity and the efficacy of fiscal and monetary policy UNIVERSITY B (Econ Theory)

CORE is a module not a programme What changes? Re-sequencing Re-prioritisation Why? Increased motivation provides rationale for year 2 developments Ease of adoption without (necessarily) disturbing course logic Coherence

Quality of the ebook and related readings Pragmatic approach to curriculum change It is not “heterodox” but it does not treat economics as “settled” It raises issues like inequality, climate constraints, crisis and methodological concerns in context Capacity Capacity and buy-in

Read all or most of the unit Didn’t read before lecture UCL58%22% Bristol12%57% Quality of ebook: students engage differently…

Adapting CORE 2. Adapting CORE Length of Course (20,30,40 out of 120 cp) Intake (maths level) Programme type (economics, business studies) Leibnitzes Einsteins Games and Experiments Discusses and extra MCQs Choice of units (e.g. Bristol 1-14,17) Instructors guides and case studies

Just in time, clickers/responseware Re-imagining the lecture Flipping Experiments and Games Delivering CORE 3. Delivering CORE (at the cutting edge)

Resources to Help 4. Resources to help (in Preparation) Lecture Slides Extra MCQs and Discuss questions (with Suggested solutions and ideas for class use) Experiments and games Adapting CORE: pathways through the text Data sets from the text User community and contributions

DISCUSS Guidance

Resource Examples Experiments Data Files Images from the chapters

“If you read the whole of Varian, you could talk about gradients and lines and curves, but if you wanted to have a conversation about economics, you’d struggle” CORE Econ